Cristina García Rodero (Puertollano, 74 years old) is a tireless fighter who began photographing festivals half a century ago in cities that were inaccessible, in a Spain without highways and with trains that seemingly never reached their destination. La Niña, as some photographers initially disdainfully called her, is now the winner of the National Prize and the first name in Spanish photography to be accepted into the famous Magnum agency. Beyond the cliché of a party photographer, her humanistic eye is interested in people and in documenting their feelings and their lives. In these images from her new book, Being a Photographer, a Gift of Life (JdeJ Editores), you can see her warmth and closeness with women, like this mother hugging her sad daughter in a portrait that focuses on relates to well-being. Well-known man whom Dorothea Lange took in with her two children in Depression-era California.
They are all photographs with visual power, enhanced by places like India, a special country to her that she returns to whenever she can, even at the risk of being overwhelmed by the ecstatic crowd at one of her colorful celebrations. Or Haiti with its cleansing waterfall, where naked and trance-filled women and men invoke spirits to survive in one of the most miserable countries on earth. There are also women who have fun while others are modest and wrapped in the veil of religion. And then there is the authenticity of the girls, privy to rituals that their mothers and grandmothers have certainly already experienced. Brave and disobedient, García Rodero will continue with her cameras in every corner of the planet until her legs allow her, and wherever they take her, she will seek the same thing as when it all began: to photograph feelings.
Georgia (1995), admitted to Zugdidi Hospital. Cristina Garcia Rodero
The Bride in the Temple (India, 2015). Cristina Garcia Rodero
In 2005, Cristina García Rodero became the first Spanish company to join the Magnum photo agency. Pictured: The Adolescent (Haiti, 2002). Cristina Garcia Rodero
Offering to Yemanyá (Brazil, 2008). 2008). Cristina Garcia Rodero
The Embrace (India, 2015). Cristina Garcia Rodero
The iconic image entitled Italia (Puglia, 2000), in which a group of women march through the streets singing their pain for the death of Christ on Holy Saturday that year. Cristina Garcia Rodero
Spanish photographer Cristina García Rodero was called “La Niña” by some of her professional colleagues. In the picture “Sugar Lips” (Berlin, 2009).Cristina García Rodero
Butterfly wings (Black Rock City, USA, 2001), taken during the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. Cristina Garcia Rodero
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